Disappears to make almost two dozen appearances this summer in various cities throughout the US

I have a lot going on this week, so I’ve agreed to let my neighbor Zack write up a blurb for the Kranky band Disappears, who are touring behind this year’s Guilder (TMT Review) this summer, while I work on formatting the tourdates and finding all the links and stuff. Then I’m just going to piece it all together when we’re done and hope that it’s all factual and coherent and whatnot. Zack is a drummer in a noise rock band (when he’s not fixing heaters and air conditioners), so I figure he should have a healthy appreciation for Disappears’ vibe. He also went kind of ape-shit when I told him that Steve Shelley was drumming with them. But I’m thinking he’ll be fine as long as he sticks to the Wikipedia page and gets his facts right. Either way, I won’t have time to fix it, so I hope so. Take it away, Zack:

Hey readers Disappears is a band that has Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth in it on Lead Everything. Like Steve Drozd, Steve Shelley is a god of drums no question but he’s also apparently really really good at lead songwriting because he is the master of awesomeness in this band that he is the lead singer of. Like I said Disappears is Steve Shelley’s side project from Sonic Youth and proves to be an unbeaten instrumentalist of multiple talents. This evidence can be seen on the recent album that Steve released on his own boutique label Kranky after producing mixing and mastering it in his home studio in New York New York. But in addition, fans of Steve Shelley can see him on the road this summer with his touring band when he and they play shows around America for lucky delighted fans everywhere. Do not miss this chance to see rock and roll at its best format. To conclude, Steve Shelley rules hard and drummers forever.

You may have noticed that fresh material from Grizzly Bear has been somewhat absent in the news since 2009’s Veckatimest (oh, I guess there was also 2010’s indie soundtrack). But whatever the other guys are doing, Chris Taylor, Grizzly Bear’s vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/producer, is far too ambitious to wait idly by for the band to score another “Two Weeks” hit. You’ve probably heard his name in the last two years as the co-founder of Terrible Records (which released Twin Shadow’s debut Forget) and maybe even sent him your demo with hopes of becoming the next big Terrible thing. But being producer and label head is still not enough for Taylor and his dream of Brooklyn(/world) domination, and so with Grizzly Bear in a barely-active lull, he has announced his own solo project as CANT.

On September 13, CANT is planning to release its first album, Dreams Come True, on Terrible Records, and if the title of the record weren’t so cheery, we’d wonder if Taylor was developing an inferiority complex. Like many “solo” projects that actually mean “apart from that supergroup he/she is known for,” Taylor isn’t entirely alone: for Dreams Come True, Twin Shadow’s George Lewis Jr. is one-half of CANT, having both written and recorded the new album with Taylor. (For Taylor’s purposes, though, “CANT is Chris Taylor. Chris Taylor is CANT.”) While Dreams Come True is CANT’s debut full-length, he previously released a split with none other than the late Arthur Russell, which acted as the first 7-inch in a Terrible Records single series. (Russell’s side is a previously unreleased track, naturally recorded prior to his death in 1992 — Taylor isn’t that special.)

Summer won’t last fast forever, and before you know it, September will soon be upon us, which means CANT is due for a tour, dutifully scheduled for October (and featuring a full backing band). In the meantime, grab an ice cream cone and keep hoping that tastemaker Taylor will pick your band for Terrible’s newest addition. Who knows? Maybe he still has your demo CD-R in his desk drawer.

Minimalist composer, film maker, visual artist, and tennis player Harley Gaber died last week in Gallup, New Mexico. Gaber committed suicide on 16 June, two weeks after the release of his final album, In Memoriam. He was born in Chicago in 1943. […]

In the final years of his life Gaber released four albums: I Saw My Mother Ascending Mt Fuji in 2009, and in 2010, Sovereign Of The Centre and The Realm Of Indra’s Net. In Memoriam 2010 was released two weeks before Gaber committed suicide.

After a lifetime of not being signed to Warner Brothers Records, Common has changed labels from Interscope and finally signed with Warner Brothers Records.

Everyone’s favorite rapper-turned-actor (that isn’t Ice Cube), Common, has announced that he’s found a new label to finance his dreams. The musician, who was most recently in the news because of an invitation to the White House and a controversial poem that has opinions different from conservatives’, last released an album in 2008 (Universal Mind Control) and is looking forward to the chance to collaborate with other Warner Bros. artists like Curren$y, Dire Straits, Yosemite Sam, and Ben-Hur.

“I’m very grateful to be a part of this family, to be a part of this team,” said Common to his mirror as his practiced his speech, “We have very inspirational, exciting music to team up with you. We’re just open to what this change can bring.”

No further details, including the release date for Space Jam 2: Spacier, were announced.

Long past are the days when NOFX first enthralled preteens uninitiated to the wonders of punk and music their parents didn’t like, when, at age 13, Punk in Drublic replaced Let It Be and white kids shouted “Don’t call me white” while struggling to find guitar tabs on the nascent web. History hasn’t exactly treated NOFX too nicely though, so it makes the timing of a covers album of 80s hardcore… questionable.

Nonetheless, after two years of waiting, said album — a thus-far untitled 7-inch — is finally slated for release August 2 from Fat Wreck Chords. Little information has been released about the nine-track EP, aside from the album artwork and a quote from Mike Burkett circa 2009, printed in Ground Control. Of the bands covered, he said:

They’re all from the US and that’s all kind of what we grew up on. […M]ostly they’re bands that no one ever heard of and most of their records never made it to CD. It’s pretty obscure — a couple of the bigger bands would be The Necros and Social Unrest and Stretch Marks. We’re just going to put it out and we’re not going to put any information on it; no credits, no song titles, no nothing — just a blank disc — so if you don’t know who it is, you won’t know who it is.

To remind listeners that NOFX did in fact exist during the glory era of those oh-so-obscure bands they’re covering, a second EP is forthcoming (possibly this summer), featuring some purportedly godawful recordings from 1984. The quote du jour, re: NOFX, is Fat Mike’s promise that “it’s pretty fucking terrible” — and you know, if that’s what it takes for NOFX to get back in my good graces, I’m all for it.

It seems that legendary instrumental hip-hop dude DJ Shadow’s new album The Less You Know The Better is aptly-named. Shadow’s fourth studio album is scheduled for September 5 in the UK, with no word of a US date as yet. Fortunately, fans have a slightly less mysterious EP called I Gotta Rokk to tide them over until September, and besides, I hired a private investigator to follow DJ Shadow around to figure out what his favorite food is, where he likes to let it all loose, and whatever details can be discovered about the new album — just for you!

Okay, I didn’t do that, but I did check out DJ Shadow’s website. Alas, I didn’t unearth a tracklisting or info about possible collaborations, but my in-depth mouse-clicking did reveal that I Gotta Rokk features music from the upcoming full-length. In addition to the title track, the EP includes two other new tracks, “Def Surrounds Us” and “I’ve Been Trying,” both of which were released as singles last year. It also includes remixes, glorious remixes! I Gotta Rokk has been selling out all over the place, so it’s either mindblowingly awesome or someone has been stockpiling copies to use for trade on that fateful day when the gold standard returns to America and we all live in underground bunkers, bartering goats and wedding rings and instrumental hip-hop CDs.